Australians are famous for their laid back nature and that is also translating into how we’re doing business – typically paying invoices almost a month late. As a nation, Australia ranked bottom of the table behind other nations including the US, Canada, Mexico, Ireland and Denmark when it comes to paying invoices, with an average of 26.4 days overdue.
What does this mean for businesses? With billions of dollars caught up in unpaid invoices in Australia, it poses an extra strain on businesses from both a financial and time efficiency perspective, putting additional pressure on SMBs that they don’t need.
Global payments technology company, Square, has crunched the numbers and released data on over 1,500 Australian businesses to uncover who is behind slow payments.
Who is paying late?
When broken down, the data showed that ACT customers and business are the quickest state when it comes to paying their invoices (3.3 days early) whereas Western Australian businesses are the slowest, waiting on average 4.5 days over the due date.
Bars, clubs and lounges are slowing the pace right down, on average 7.4 days late, followed by contractors, professional services and creatives. In contrast, accountants are the quickest to pay invoices, on average 7.6 days early!
To help take the strain off businesses when it comes to invoicing, Square launched Square Invoices in Australia earlier this year with the aim of giving business owners a faster way to create invoices, so they can invest time back into the business and spend more time focusing on what they do best. When using Square Invoices, payments were generally made 80 per cent faster compared to traditional invoicing methods.
Take a look at the infographic below detailing the findings from the study.
